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Arts organizations may try for a share of the stimulus package
$50 million allotted in project grants for arts organizations
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Published: February 22, 2009
Updated: 02/22/2009 12:40 am
Local arts organizations will soon be able to try tapping into an unusual source of funding.
If they do, they're sure to get plenty of nationwide competition for some of the $50 million that was earmarked recently for the National Endowment of the Arts. And the groups applying for grants paid for by this money will have to clearly demonstrate how a particular proposal will preserve jobs, NEA officials said.
The $50 million is in the stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday.
Only arts organizations, not individual artists, will be eligible to apply. Information on how to apply will be available by the middle of next month (see www.nea.gov), said Victoria Hutter, spokeswoman for the NEA. In a departure from usual practices, organizations that receive an NEA grant funded by the $50 million will not have to match it, she said.
Administrators of local arts groups greeted the possibility of receiving stimulus money either from the NEA or from the N.C. Arts Council with mixed reactions. The council might receive some of the $50 million in question, along with other state arts agencies.
Merritt Vale, the executive director of the Winston-Salem Symphony, suggested that the recession has hit arts organizations hard.
"I would be stunned if many organizations aren't recognizing the possibility of having to consider reducing employment," she said.
The symphony, she said, certainly would be applying to both the NEA and the N.C. Arts Council.
The N.C. Arts Council gave the symphony $61,750 in general operating support for a fiscal year that started in July 2008, Vale said.
"If we learn more about stimulus money that the N.C. Arts Council receives, that we would be eligible to apply for, then of course we would apply for that," she said.
Norman Ussery, the executive director of Twin City Stage (formerly the Little Theatre of Winston-Salem), said he would not be applying to the NEA for a grant; he said such efforts are better suited to organizations supporting professional artists. Nobody at the Little Theatre is paid except for administrative staff and stage directors.
The Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County is hoping to receive some of the money in the stimulus package, albeit stimulus money designated for "infrastructure," not the NEA grants.
"At their request, we submitted a proposal to the (N.C.) Arts Council for infrastructure funds related to construction of The Downtown Center for The Arts," e-mailed Christine Gorelick, the council's vice president of external relations. "There is no guarantee that any of this money will be allocated to organizations like ours, but we can demonstrate that we have a ‘shovel-ready' project, and have provided information about the project to state officials."
The $50 million allocation for the NEA is in two parts. One part will set aside 60 percent of the $50 million for individual arts projects competing for endowment grants. The other 40 percent will flow to state arts agencies.
But just how much money the N.C. Arts Council will receive and the guidelines it will have for distributing the money are not yet known.
"We don't have the information yet," said Bridgette A. Lacy, the media relations manager for the N.C. Arts Council.
Hutter said that state agencies will need to apply for the money.
■ Ken Keuffel can be reached at 727-7337 or at kkeuffel@wsjournal.com.
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